


Denial is not just a river in North Africa

by orphan_account



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Feels, M/M, Really really wanky, Use of "Good Lord"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:01:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29163870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “Wait, Havers,” the Captain blurts, his head a confliction of warring emotion – hopelessness, anger, affection, disappointment, dejection, all fighting for dominance. He steps out from behind the desk before he even realises his legs are moving. “Please don’t leave,” he adds, quietly.
Relationships: The Captain/Lieutenant Havers (Ghosts TV 2019)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 47





	Denial is not just a river in North Africa

The Captain pores over the day’s briefing from HQ, papers spread across his wide mahogany desk, the room having darkened around him with dusk creeping in like an assassin, his focus stolen by the paperwork he had retired to his quarters to review some three hours earlier. It seems the Romanians have relinquished Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina following an ultimatum from the Soviets, and while it’s a sorely needed spot of good news since France’s surrender the week prior, it’s not much. The mood is low, even at Button House, which is so far from the death and destruction of the front lines, and perhaps that’s why: the full impotence of their position understood hundreds of miles from any real action.

He frowns and stretches, shoulders and neck tense, and realises the sky outside has turned the blood red that sailors so wish for, and that he is squinting in the half-light. Leaning forward to click on the desk lamp, those white pages are suddenly illuminated before him, spectral tomes detailing how the whole world is at war, the severity of the situation however somewhat lost in the clinical vernacular of a British Army despatch. It's for the best, of course, it wouldn’t do to have some lachrymose account of the losses the allies were undoubtedly suffering knocking morale back even further, but at the same time, the Captain can’t help but remember that each defeat means husbandless wives, fatherless children, and men who will never return home.

The Captain rubs his eyes with the heels of his palm and clears his throat purposefully. No good getting emotional about it all, that’s neither use nor ornament to anyone. He glances over at the Grandfather clock, a rather ostentatious reminder of the house’s true owners. Almost 2200 hours, not long until lights out.

He is just collecting up his papers, when he hears a tentative knock at the heavy door across the room from his desk. He checks the clock again and, despite his sombre mood, a twinge of giddy delight sparks deep in his belly. A visitor this far into the evening can mean only one thing.

Unless, of course, it’s news from the front line? It’s certainly possible. The spark dies, just as quickly as it came.

Another knock, louder this time.

The Captain hurriedly stuffs the pile of paper into the drawer on his left, before slamming it shut and barking “Come!”. He stands, expectant, and a young man enters.

“Captain, apologies for disturbing you at this hour.” He stands at attention, and the Captain smiles warmly, that crackle of excitement having returned. The Captain knows how this goes: the late night arrival, the deferential apology, then the light-hearted chatter about nothing, and later, well.

“But I have news, sir,” the man continues, his expression uncharacteristically dour.

The Captain’s brows knit together.

“Of course, Havers, at ease, at ease; please. There’s no need to apologise.” Without thinking, he picks up his swagger stick and places it under his arm, the familiar shape and weight a strange comfort in the presence of this sudden development.

“Thank you, sir” Havers replies, clasping his hands together behind his back. He smiles, but it is tinged with something the Captain can’t quite decode. “I wanted to tell you right away, as soon as I could. I wanted you to hear it from me.”

“Yes, yes, of course. What is it?” the Captain urges softly, a note of panic in his tone which he hopes has escaped Havers’ detection. He twists his fist around the stick which rests against his ribs, his knuckles white.

“My request to transfer to North Africa has been approved, sir,” Havers announces anxiously.

“Already?” The word is out of his mouth before he can stop it, and it sounds desperate.

“Yes, sir,” Havers confirms, his gaze studious, watching his superior officer’s reaction carefully. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s so…”

“Quick?” Havers finishes for him, shifting slightly from foot to foot. “They’re in urgent need of good men to join the cause in Egypt. All applications are being expedited, or so I’ve been told.”

The Captain considers this new detail.

“Perhaps I should – “ he ventures, unsure, eyebrows raised.

“With your knees sir?” Havers counters, not unkindly, and smiles again, that same indecipherable something there which makes the Captain’s brow furrow. It’s like looking at a stranger.

“You’re quite right, I wouldn’t be much use on these creaky things, would I? Perhaps once I’m back to my normal fitness level - I’ve been doing laps of the grounds every morning and my times are improving day by day, I’m sure I’ll be fighting fit in no time! More than capable of having Jerry on the run, I dare say.”

Havers nods once in acknowledgement and looks at the floor, seemingly unable to meet his commanding officer’s eye. He says nothing.

With some disgust, the Captain realises that Havers actually pities him. The lieutenant's nervousness is not apprehension at travelling to some foreign continent halfway across the world, or the terror of facing a violent and unforgiving enemy, or God forbid it, sadness at their separation, their work unfinished, but rather at how the Captain might respond to the news of his leaving; as though he might break apart before him and beg him to stay, face it with the stereotypical temperamentality for which men who share his particular affliction are reviled. But the Captain has been here before, and he knows the ropes.

“What am I saying. This is about your success, not my busted joints! Jolly good show old chap!”

The Captain forces his mouth into a smile, but it’s rictus, and he lies through his gritted teeth as his second in command's shoulders sag in relief.

“That’s excellent, Havers, really, well done.”

“I’m incredibly excited to get out there,” Havers says animatedly, his eyes suddenly sparkling and grin broad. He appears as he always has once more, his features no longer disfigured by the burden of bad news, and it sickens the Captain to think that he was the cause of such consternation. “I owe you a huge debt of gratitude actually sir, our work together pipped it I think.”

“No need to thank me,” the Captain retorts, and waves his hand dismissively. “Though, I must admit I’m surprised the action was sanctioned given your inexperience. But if they’re as desperate as you say, I suppose the decision is understandable.”

Havers smile slips a little and the Captain thrills at the ineluctable yet hollow feeling of having delivered a tiny blow to the lieutenant’s confidence. The truth is, he _is_ surprised by the decision, especially it being made so damn fast. When Havers had told him of his plans only days earlier, the Captain had assumed, it appears naively, that it would take weeks, perhaps even months, for permission to be granted, such was the bureaucratic nature of military service. God knows, he’d been waiting for his request for a blasted service revolver to be agreed for long enough. He curses himself for being so pathetically hopeful that he and Havers could continue getting acquainted. He thought this time perhaps things would be different, but alas it looks like it is not to be.

“I reckon we’ve probably achieved all we can in regards to Operation William anyway, Havers. I doubt you’ve got more to contribute,” the Captain continues. “I can finish off alone. Or perhaps with Chambers’ help, he has a real knack for problem solving, I find. Very capable and practised man. A real asset to the unit.”

Havers' expression is stony.

“Yes. Well. I wish you both luck, it’s a worthy endeavour.”

The Captain is winded by Havers refusal to strike back at his obvious attempts to rile him.

“If that’s all, sir,” Havers states, his gaze averted again. He salutes and begins for the door.

“Wait, Havers,” the Captain blurts, his head a confliction of warring emotion – hopelessness, anger, affection, disappointment, dejection, all fighting for dominance. He steps out from behind the desk before he even realises his legs are moving. “Please don’t leave,” he adds, quietly.

Havers pauses, his hand on the doorknob and his back to the Captain. “I have to, sir. I’m an Officer of the British Army. I go where I’m needed.”

 _But I need you_ , the Captain wants to say, _I need you here. You’re my only friend, my only ally. You’re the only one who truly_ knows _me._

Instead: “I know, I know. I meant, join me for a drink? To toast your continued good fortune.”

The line of Havers spine stiffens, and the Captain fiddles with his swagger stick again, lips pressed together tightly. In normal circumstances, this would be the opening gambit in the delicate operation of their fraternisation. It is an invitation so benign, yet has come, over time, to be a staple of their seduction; a line which leads, it seems almost inevitably, to the Captain on his knees before his second in command, or sprawled across the ornate Beidermeier settee which resides in the corner of the room, Havers’ hips between his thighs.

Seconds pass, and the Captain holds his breath.

“I suppose one drink wouldn’t hurt” Havers answers, and he locks the door. The sound of the deadbolt sliding into place has a near Pavlovian effect on the Captain, and he leans back on the desk behind him, the swagger stick dropped on to its polished surface before rolling away to a rest abutting the metal lamp base, all but forgotten as Havers crosses the space between them. The Captain curls his fingers around the apron of the work top, bracing himself against its solid form, anticipation already building in spite of himself. He detests that this is what makes him weak, that he can’t control the hummingbird beating of his heart and the shiver of want that passes through him as Havers seizes his upper arms in both hands and regards him, curiously.

“Why do you say those things?” he asks the Captain gently, his grip at odds with the tenderness in his voice.

“What things,” the Captain responds, and gasps when Havers edges further into his space, positioning himself between the Captain’s legs and pressing against him with sharp hips.

“You know what things.”

Havers punctuates his point by grinding forward, and the Captain’s eyes roll back, shuttering closed at the sensation.

“Trying to undermine me,” he continues. “It’s hardly fair, sir.” He re-tightens his grip on the Captain’s biceps, thumbs digging uncomfortably into muscle through the smooth Barathea of the Captain’s jacket. Havers dips his head into the crook of the other man’s neck and inhales deeply. “You smell good.”

“Just standard issue soap, Havers,” the Captain replies, the lieutenant’s insistent nuzzling against his collar forcing him to cock his head to one side. His view shifts, the room slanted. “We could be together, you know, properly – ah!”

The Captain jerks slightly, Havers nipping his jaw with sharp teeth. He can feel his sub-ordinate’s smile, the laugh in his voice when he mumbles, “Sorry”, and follows the bite with a tiny lick.

“Don’t mark me,” the Captain exhorts, even as he tilts his head to allow Havers further access.

“I shan’t. At least, not where anyone should be able to see.”

The Captain shudders, closing his eyes again. “I mean it, Havers. We could be a –“ He pauses with a sigh as the licks turn to soft kisses, “a couple. After the war. My family has a cottage in the country – “

Havers’ hands have moved from the Captain’s arms down to his hips and he pulls his CO closer as the Captain carries on.

“No one would have to know. It would be just us, wouldn’t you like that?”

Havers pulls away, and the Captain whimpers.

“You know that isn’t possible,” he answers, and palms one hand against the front of the Captain’s trousers, the other at the small of his back, pulling him forward. The Captain grunts quietly and looks directly at Havers.

“Why not?” he breathes.

It’s barely sounded out, but Havers knew it would follow anyway.

“Because I have a girl,” he says, matter-of-factly, and begins undoing the fly on the Captain’s trousers with sure fingers. “Back at home in Millthrop. I have mentioned her before, sir.”

The Captain swallows and rolls his eyes while Havers is preoccupied. “Oh yes, Lucy, isn’t it?” Havers carries on working at the buttons unperturbed, struggling with the newness of the stiff dress fabric. “And I suppose you plan to marry her, do you?”

“That’s my intention, sir, yes.”

The Captain hums with wry amusement.

“I really wish you’d refrain,” Havers says, forcing his hand past the gathering of khaki twill and white ribbed cotton to wrap his fingers around the Captain, receiving a choked, “Good Lord” in response.

A moment passes silently as the Captain composes himself.

“What?” the Captain grumbles eventually, indignant. He expels a short, sharp breath as Havers’ hand begins to move. “Godspeed convincing dear Lucy to let you bugger her senseless five nights out of seven like –“

He stops short, but the _‘I do’_ hangs in the air, unspoken yet so perfectly articulated. Havers presses his free hand to the Captain’s mouth and stares, reproachful, into eyes worried at having perhaps overstepped the mark.

“Don’t,” he warns. He grabs the Captain’s belt in both hands, pulling him up and manoeuvring him until the officer is facing away, forced forward onto the plain of the desk. The Captain rests on his forearms, bent at the waist, his head bowed and face mere inches from the rich olive hue of the table’s leather insert. Havers pushes the Captain’s trousers and underwear down over the swell of his backside and grasps the muscular form of his thighs, hands stealing up and up, coming to rest at the base of the Captain’s spine, beneath layers of carefully pressed fabric.

The Captain breathes heavily below the lieutenant, a flush rising steadily from his starched collar until his face prickles with heat. It’s a feeling he both yearns for and despises: the vulnerability of being at another’s mercy, his senses heightened from ignorance at just what Havers is doing behind him, the sheer exposure of being half naked and readying himself to take whatever this other man might give to him. The lack of control, sweetly alien to someone so bound by establishment and order, makes him dizzy.

Havers compresses himself along the back line of the Captain, his body mirroring that of his superior until their edges almost blur, only fibres to separate them. He wraps his arms tightly around the Captain’s chest and brings his chin to rest upon the senior officer’s shoulder.

The hard edge of the desk juts into the Captain’s legs as he supports almost the sum total of both their weights, and he knows he will be bruised tomorrow, a horizon of mauve and navy across his upper thighs, and that once alone he will press at it with exploring fingers, delighting in the ache it produces. It will be a feeling he understands, a feeling with obvious origin, rather than the mysterious and rebellious throbbing which so often blooms without warning within the cavity of his ribcage. He considers, fleetingly, how ‘tender’ is synonymous with both adoring and painful.

“I do care for you, sir,” Havers murmurs. “I do.” He squeezes tightly and presses his lips to the shell of the Captain’s ear. “But we can’t be together.” He releases him, but the Captain’s lungs remain constricted. He knows Havers is right, and that their union is impractical, regardless of Lucy’s vexatious existence up in the rolling fields of the North. He’s seen better men than him destroyed by their urges, and he’ll be damned before he suffers the same fate.

Havers' right arm comes to rest next to the Captain’s, the Captain watching as the lieutenant’s fingers play lightly over his own, before his head is suddenly wrenched sideways, Havers’ other hand fisted in his hair and pulling, his scalp burning in protest.

The Captain makes a noise of discomfort, and Havers takes the opportunity while his jaw is slack to push his fore- and middle fingers past his teeth and into his open mouth.

“You will want those good and wet, I imagine,” Havers says as the Captain’s lips close without hesitation, the junior officer still leaning onto his right elbow while keeping a steady grip on the Captain’s hair with his left hand, his arousal obvious against the Captain’s tailbone even through the texture of his uniform.

The Captain suddenly realises what Havers is driving at, and tries to speak around the digits which are pressing down on his tongue, but it results only in a string of unintelligible vowels.

“Hmm?” Havers says, teasingly, and pushes in further. The Captain, unable to pull his head back for the hand holding it in place, shakes it back and forth instead. Havers slips his fingers out with a “What? Is something the matter?”

“No, it’s just, I’ve managed to come by something more suitable. If you wouldn’t mind?”

“Ah of course, not at all. How did you find that?” Havers says, and wipes his saliva covered hand on his pristine trousers. He steps away, and the Captain almost wishes he had just allowed the lieutenant to continue, if it meant that that weight and warmth would have remained crushed against him. He suddenly feels too light, as though there is nothing anchoring him in place, and he tries to focus on the feel of solid flooring beneath his feet, and the unyielding support of the desk under his palms.

“I, um, said I misplaced the last lot,” the Captain admits, shamefaced. Stocks were scant, but other than a disapproving look from the supplies officer, no further issue had been raised. “It’s in the first aid kit – over on the bookshelf.”

The Captain hears retreating footsteps, and the scrape of a metal container being dragged across the walnut shelving, the muffled noise of something being knocked over, and Havers cursing in a most unbecoming way. Then the sound of the first aid kit’s contents being rifled through, paper-wrapped dressings and vials of various antiseptics being moved aside, before Havers returns, all the while the Captain remaining, face growing ever hotter at being laid literally bare, unable to move, lest standing make his position seem that much more real and mortifying.

“I wish I could be what you need, Captain,” Havers says as he fiddles with the tin of Vaseline. He places it on the desk beside the other man, and then he is back in position, and the Captain feels a single digit, slick with petroleum jelly, insistent against him.

“I really wish I could,” Havers is saying, the pressure increasing, the pinch of a fingernail making the Captain bite down on his lip so as not to whine, “but I’m not like you.”

The Captain lifts his head from where it was hung between his shoulders, and shuts his eyes tight, a rivulet springing from each, cold as ice against the heat of his cheeks, one falling upon the leather below him, the other finding its way to his open mouth, saline against his tongue.

_I’m not like you._

He wants to scream, but he can’t, so instead he pushes back against Havers' hand, focussing on the burning pain of his body stretching, so preferable to the hollowness in his stomach and the cacophony resonating in his head. Havers carries on, twisting and adjusting until there is enough give to insert a second finger, and the Captain moans loudly.

“Shh,” Havers hisses. “It’s late.”

The Captain’s head drops once more, forehead flush to leather, his panting warming the air in front of his face and dampening his already clammy skin. He grips the outer edge of the desk, clawing at the wood as the pain begins to transform from spikes of discomfort to a nebulous haze of bliss. The lieutenant scissors his fingers and strokes upwards, causes the Captain’s vision to blur round the edges, punches a mono-syllabic nonsense of contentment from his throat. Havers does it again.

“Good,” Havers says encouragingly, but the Captain can barely hear him over the rushing of blood in his ears.

Then his fingers are gone, leaving the Captain feeling oddly empty, emptier even than he felt moments ago. The Vaseline is taken up again and returned, and something else replaces those missing digits, blunter, without the sharp edges which make the Captain wince to even think of. Havers has one hand on his superior’s shoulder, and there follows force and resistance, and Havers kicking his legs further apart, and finally –

“I need you to –“ Havers says, and grabs at the Captain’s thigh, encouraging it up, but its journey is hampered by the swathes of material still around his ankles. “You need to open up more to me, sir.”

The Captain attempts to step out of the pool of his trousers, but it proves difficult with shoes still in place, and eventually Havers bends down and frees his right leg from its confines.

“That’s better,” he says, forcing the Captain to bend his lower limb and rest his knee next to him upon the desk, almost as if he were about to climb atop it. He places a hand on either cheek of his commanding officer’s rear and spreads him apart, fingers gripping at his flesh. “Oh God, that’s much better,” he adds, his speech loose and mumbled, and the Captain feels he might die from the humiliation of complete exposure, until his thoughts are silenced by the exquisite sensation of being filled once more, stoppered by Havers’ full length.

Havers stills above him, and the Captain turns his head to rest against the still-damp desk, facing across to the sashed windows of the office, curtains wide open and night having now taken hold of the sky completely. He thinks back to the dalliances he has conducted over the decades, admittedly few though they were, and of the men who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, stay; and the one that did, only to be taken so cruelly by a power even more divine and intractable than the British Army. Then Havers places his right hand on the desk, in the crook of the Captain’s knee, to steady himself, and begins to move.

It starts slowly, as it so often does, heat and friction, and Havers pushing forward and pulling back, silent but for the occasional soft murmur, their shadows merged, apparitions in the dim light from the desk lamp, the rest of the room in darkness. The Captain tries not to remember the others, just beyond the door, and what would happen if anyone was to find out the truth about these late-night liaisons with his second in command. There is a hand on his waist, while another clutches the desk by his leg, keeping it in place despite the discomfort in his joints. His muscles will not thank him in the morning, but for now it’s fine, and he can’t ask for more than that: it’s worthwhile if only for the feeling of having someone else near him, within him, a connection in spite of the splintering of normality which pervades elsewhere, a symptom of existence at this particular point in history.

And it continues, Havers’ movements having become as even and constant as well-kept machinery, the Captain unable to tell an upstroke from down, more like an endless unremitting course running through him. He realises he is moaning, low and unbroken, and ceases, self-conscious. It is strange, he thinks, that he can allow this to happen, let himself be taken in this most indecent of ways, and adore both it and the man accountable, yet remain afraid to demonstrate just how much he relishes their congress, how it awakens each nerve and electrifies every synapse within him. Havers leans forward, the pistoning motion of his hips faltering as he does.

“Don’t stop, I want to hear you,” he whispers, and his fingers scrabble for purchase on the back of the Captain’s jacket, but finding none, loop round the thick leather of his belt instead. “Show me –“, he tugs on the belt, and it digs in to the Captain’s skin like a blunt blade, “Show me how much you like it.”

He straightens up again and pulls the Captain back on to him while he pushes himself deeper. The Captain whines in response and reaches behind him to grab Havers’ arm where it grips the desk’s edge, the carnality of their union no longer enough for him, desperate for the feeling of a hand enveloped within his or gentle upon his face. He manages to catch the lieutenant’s elbow, and pulls it to him, a fistful of Havers’ jacket in his fingers. His leg slips with nothing to keep it steady, and suddenly he is back on both feet again and his position has shifted slightly, and he whimpers “Oh God,” at the new angle and the tingling feeling that shoots up his spine and across the tautness of his shoulders.

“Oh _God_.” Havers’ sleeve is still bunched in his hand, but his mind is momentarily stupefied, full of nothing but ‘harder’ and ‘deeper’ and ‘more’.

“Are you? Are you going to –“ Havers rushes out, and the Captain makes a mumbled “mmhm” noise, his cheek pressed to the desk, eyes screwed shut. Havers wrests his arm from the other man’s grip and takes up his hand in his, only to place it back down onto the tabletop, and the Captain almost complains but then that same hand is somewhere else entirely, encircling him tightly, their movements linked, and a familiar glow ignites in his abdomen.

“Jesus Christ, oh God.” He’s groaning, as the glow unfurls within him, and Havers is breathing heavily but he’s not slowing down, and the glow continues to build and build until finally it breaks, breaches whatever within him was keeping it sheathed, and he comes, fingernails grazing leather and blasphemy on his lips.

Havers carries on, chasing his own ends, even as the Captain’s knees give and he drops flat against the desk, his brain conjuring vague anticipatory visions of him dabbing at his jacket in the early hours, desperately trying to expunge the evidence of their transgressions in time for drills first thing. He wonders if Havers will look back on their liaisons in the same manner – a stain to be removed from the fabric of his life, a defect marring an otherwise exemplary existence as a decorated soldier, devoted husband, perhaps even a doting father. It angers him, twists up a rage unlike any other, that perhaps he will never know such a life. But it is not Havers’ fault. He understands that the temptation to acquiesce is strong, so very strong: to find a woman one can tolerate and marry her, and have a normal existence amongst the normal people, with little ones and church on Sundays, and all that goes along with such domesticity. He had tried, Lord knows he had, but he couldn’t do it, the guilt and shame a constant weight upon his chest. No, it was not for him, but one day, he would find someone who felt he was worth risking everything for, and he would look back on this, decades into the future, and see it as nought but a stop on his journey.

Havers huffs above him, breaking the Captain’s reverie, and he glances down to watch as the lieutenant lays his hand upon the Captain’s own and entwines their fingers, grasping hard as he finds his own climax. He collapses down onto the man beneath him and laughs lightly.

“Goodness.”

The Captain remains silent, still transfixed by their hands. It gives him hope anew, that all is not lost, that deployment is a long way away, and that girls in Millthrop, or anywhere else for that matter, are nothing more than distractions. It is a gesture of love, a sign of their connection. It is tender.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think, if there's anything you liked, didn't like, errors, issues, plot-holes, disgraceful use of language unbefitting the time period, etc.


End file.
